(Kota Kinabalu,
Wednesday) :
Works Minister Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu’s outburst yesterday, ticking off
the PAC Chairman Datuk Shahrir Samad, for “meddling in the affairs of the
Works Ministry”, is most uncalled-for and unwarranted, a typical
manifestation of a “third world” mentality of Ministers who are
unaccustomed to and uncomfortable with close parliamentary scrutiny in
“first-world” democracies.

Samy Vellu
accused Shahrir of seeking cheap publicity and said the PAC could not keep
asking ministry officials to attend its meetings just so that it would be
able to give press conferences.

He said he had
asked the director-general to give written answers to questions from the PAC
in future rather than send officers to the meeting.

He added: ‘We
can’t waste our time. We only have a limited time to implement projects.”

Samy Vellu’s
outburst is most deplorable and must be censured, particularly when he
equated parliamentary proceedings like PAC meetings as “a waste of time”.
Is this the reason why Ministers, Deputy Ministers and Parliamentary
Secretaries had played truant from parliamentary meetings until the Prime
Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had to repeatedly remind
Ministers about the importance of their attending to their duties in
Parliament to account for their departmental responsibilities?

This is a
typical case of “kacang lupa kulit” as Ministers are in the first instance
Members of Parliament – and will never be in the Cabinet if they are not
MPs.

Samy Vellu is
also treading on dangerous ground when he unilaterally and arbitrarily
directed his director-general to give written answers instead of sending
officers to PAC meetings, as he is exposing the officials in his Ministry to
punitive actions by Parliament for parliamentary contempts.

The PAC in
Malaysia will become the laughing-stock of Commonwealth Parliaments and the
world if Ministry officials can defy summons by the PAC to appear before it
by insisting on sending written answers!

Samy Vellu
should personally appear before the PAC to answer questions relating to his
Ministry if his Ministry officials are too busy to attend. In the process,
he will be making a significant contribution to parliamentary reform and
modernization in Malaysia in setting the precedent of Ministers appearing
before parliamentary committees – which is a rarity in Malaysia while a
common occurrence in “first-world” parliamentary democracies.

Samy Vellu is particularly
annoyed that the PAC and Shahrir are continuously questioning the scrapped
crooked half-bridge project.

I am not very happy with the
PAC as it is not aggressive and nimble-footed enough to get to the bottom
of the crooked half-bridge scandal.

Parliament was told in April
that the costs of the cancellation of the RM1.1 billion crooked half-bridge
was RM350 million, i.e. RM100 million compensation to contractor Gerbang
Perdana and RM250 million to build a new highway joining the new Customs,
Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) complex in Johor to the Causeway.

Now these costs seemed to have
ballooned to over RM1 billion, comprising (i) RM100 million compensation,
(ii) RM470 million instead of the RM250 million eight-lane elevated highway
from the new CIQ to the Causeway because of related works such as connecting
roads and amenities; (iii) RM160 million which had already been spent on the
crooked half-bridge before it was cancelled; and (iv) RM380 million demand
for land premium by the Johore State Government.

There are many questions which
PAC will be remiss in its duties to Parliament if it fails to get proper and
accurate answers from the Works Ministry – for instance, why the eight-lane
800 metre-long elevated highway is so expensive when the average cost of
quality eight-lane elevated highways meeting international standards is
between RM75 million to 80 million?

If Samy Vellu obstructs and
sabotages the PAC from discharging its duties and responsibilities assigned
to it by Parliament, then Samy Vellu should be hauled before the Privileges
Committee for contempt and breach of parliamentary privileges.

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi should countermand the misconceived directive of Samy
Vellu to his director-general that the Works
Ministry officials boycott attendance of PAC meetings and instead send
written answers to the PAC and educate all Ministers about their fundamental
duty to account to Parliament and parliamentary committees.